Does It Get Any Better Than This?

Last Friday I was a special guest in my son’s grade six language arts class at Walter W. Brown School in Langham Saskatchewan. His students are using my book Lost on the Prairie for a novel study and are about halfway through the story.

**Showing the students a photo of my grandfather who inspired my novel**

My son invited me to talk to his students about how I’d written the book and the process of having it published. The kids had lots of questions for me which was great. They were an alert and lively bunch and so interested in my book.

I told them all about my grandparents Peter and Annie Schmidt, who inspired my novel’s story. I had brought a number of things with me that had once belonged to my grandparents and they were so interested in them.

After I talked to the class and answered their questions they had a fifteen-minute break and during it, one of the boys in the class took the initiative to make me a card. He wrote a special message to me on one side, and then got his classmates to put their signatures on the other and make comments about the book.

**Reading aloud from my novel to the class**

After the break, I read the class another couple of chapters from the book and then the young man who’d engineered the making of the card presented it to me.

I was nearly in tears. As my son arranged his students for a photo with me I thought, “Does it get any better than this? Here you are talking about a published novel you’ve written in your own son’s class?”

Definitely one of the most memorable moments on life’s journey so far.